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Topic: Parental Rights (Read 840 times)

To cut right to the chase, I started this thread to solicit the opinions of my fellow forum members as it pertains to the extent of parental responsibility and authority relating to the children spawned.

The issue has been something I've thought about recently as I find myself questioning whether or not there's a better way to 'parental model' is the model that best serves society and the individual in the long term. In my mind I have been tossing ideas around that do not involve the 'parental model' and i was wanting some thoughtful input.

Care to start things off with some of your thoughts, or at least a few questions you want answered? This is a very broad topic. Your initial post is quite vague, and doesn't lend itself to informed responses.

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He never pays attention, he always knows the answer, and he can never tell you how he knows. We can't keep thrashing him. He is a bad example to the other pupils. There's no educating a smart boy.-– Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

Violence begets violence. Spanking (and of course more violent forms of punishment) is outdated, ineffective, and destructive to the parent/child bond. Violence, at any level, against children, should be obsolete by now. We are no longer living in the Dark Ages.

I know many say "well, I was spanked and I turned out fine." Yup. Lots of people did. But I'll bet they'd have turned out happier and better adjusted if they'd been treated with love, respect, and gentle parenting.

I think that circumcision without a medical reason is also wrong. What kind of a brain-dead idiot started this? Did someone wake up one day and say to themselves, "hey, let's welcome all our baby boys into the world by cutting off part of their genitals?" Its barbaric.

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If we ever travel thousands of light years to a planet inhabited by intelligent life, let's just make patterns in their crops and leave.

Created To Be His Helpmeet (yuck, it makes my skin crawl just typing that) by Debi and Micheal Pearl has a lot of parenting direction in it. It actually gives pretty clear instructions about how, why, and with what to beat your kids.

Hell, I'm not sure that would even get the vote for "worst topic discussed with blatant ignorance by complete raving lunatics" in the whole book. It's a great primer of what not to do to your children if you have a shred of humanity.

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“Be skeptical. But when you get proof, accept proof.” –Michael Specter

I think that circumcision without a medical reason is also wrong. What kind of a brain-dead idiot started this? Did someone wake up one day and say to themselves, "hey, let's welcome all our baby boys into the world by cutting off part of their genitals?" Its barbaric.

I often wondered how that originated. Where did they come up with that? Maybe some kid had some kind of infection & it (the look) caught on? I originally intended not to have my son circumcised but he was born with hypospadias so it ended up being medically necessary but I doubt they were doing that procedure way back then...

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It doesn't make sense to let go of something you've had for so long. But it also doesn't make sense to hold on when there's actually nothing there.

The issue has been something I've thought about recently as I find myself questioning whether or not there's a better way to 'parental model' is the model that best serves society and the individual in the long term. In my mind I have been tossing ideas around that do not involve the 'parental model' and i was wanting some thoughtful input.

What characteristics do we want to instill into a child? What would build them into an adult who makes the best contribution to society - assuming that that is what we want? I think you need to answer those questions before asking what form of upbringing is best.

Example: if what is "best" for society is that you want emotionless drones to man the factories, then loving 2-parent upbringing would come a poor second to a boarding school/workhouse upbringing. A child who is raised to be valued and to feel special and valuable may not make the best 8-to-6 assembly-line worker.

What do we want our children to be? And should ALL children be raised the same way?

... I often wondered how that originated. Where did they come up with that? Maybe some kid had some kind of infection & it (the look) caught on? I originally intended not to have my son circumcised but he was born with hypospadias so it ended up being medically necessary but I doubt they were doing that procedure way back then...

Apparently at least part of it was started by people believing that it would cut down on masturbation.

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If we ever travel thousands of light years to a planet inhabited by intelligent life, let's just make patterns in their crops and leave.

^^^WTF is it about christians and sex? That's some seriously neurotic behavior there.

If the christian god really existed, why the hell would they think he's that interested in what we're doing with our genitalia? With a whole universe out there to entertain himself with, you'd think he could find plenty of other things more worthy of his attention.

Edit: because apparently I can't type worth a sh!t.

« Last Edit: April 16, 2013, 10:38:19 PM by Jag »

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“Be skeptical. But when you get proof, accept proof.” –Michael Specter

The premise is that the Roman culture was one of hedonism and sensuality. Because people were valued based on their ability to provide sexual pleasure, xianity was "liberating". I'm not sure I buy it. It might not even be historically accurate. I dunno. But I've seen examples where people think slavery is freedom.

For example, muslim women wearing tents feel like they are free from the leering eyes of men and sexual pressure. Personally, I think that just makes things worse. Because every part of a woman is made taboo, that only serves to objectify them further. "Holy crap, I was at the mall and this woman's hijab came up and I saw her ankle! It was so hawt!"

On the other hand, you could say the desire to control reproducting is an evolutionary feature. Lions kill the cubs of the previous alpha lion prior to mating. Elephant seal bulls jealously guard their harems. We are just talking monkeys, so why should be expect to be any different?

Thanks for the link screwtape, that was an interesting read. There's a lot of double think going on in there, and a few suppositions, but it does seem to be a fairly good explanation of why conservative christians get their undies in an uproar over other people's sex lives.

I try really, really hard to see things from multiple perspective. Extremists are tough though.

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“Be skeptical. But when you get proof, accept proof.” –Michael Specter

It is such a complicated issue. Lets say a husband and wife are horrible parents. Their toddlers are sent into the foster system because the household is so bad. There are the basics that we need to survive such as nutrition and cleanliness.

Interesting that I first found the pyramid above at the planned parenthood website, demonized by conservatives as only interested in performing abortions. Anyway, from what I have heard, once you get past the bottom few survival basics, kids do very much better with their own parents if the parents can get the needed support to get their own act together, which they never saw as kids, leading to the vicious cycle, treating their children the way they were treated.

It's also a convenient control mechanism. The sex drive is very powerful and sexual stimulation is pretty easy to achieve. No surprise there, it's the sort of thing that is almost guaranteed to be selected for as creatures evolve. So what better way to control a population than by taking a highly rewarding behavior and making it "wrong" or "sinful?" This makes it easy to leverage the power of guilt and turn the condescension of the priest class into kindness. In the past, when it was more difficult to reveal the misconduct of the priest class, they had it very good-- they were the pure and righteous judges of the filthy, fallen mass of lowly sinners. It's no surprise that sex scandals are one of the biggest (if not the biggest) headaches for many of the prominent religions today. It is, IMO, the natural and unavoidable outcome as technology and human society progress.

Here in Australia we have this pretty dreadful thing called 'The baby bonus'. What it means is if you're on a low income (usually government benefits) and you have a child, you're entitled to up to $2000. That goes a long way towards an Xbox and a few drinks. And the kids are subsequently left to roam the streets (literally) as their parents smoke bongs and play the latest version of Grand Theft Auto. I had a friend who was in hospital a few years back about to give birth to her first child. The bogan in the bed next to her (also about to give birth) revealed that she was excited that she would soon be using her baby bonus to purchase a new play station 3.

It's all about priorities.

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You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.